There's no getting around the fact that Beowulf is violent. As probably hundreds of commentators have observed, the poem is organized around the hero's battles with three monsters; further, the ‘digressions and episodes’ that frequently interrupt the action are more often than not tales of strife. It has been said that much of Beowulf consists of speech rather than action and that it might more appropriately be described as an elegy than as an epic. There is much truth in these observations. But when the characters of Beowulf speak, they generally speak of fighting: they vow or elicit vows to fight, thank people for fighting or blame them for not fighting, remember or anticipate fights, offer advice about how to become a better fighter. And the elegiac content of the poem, the ‘dirge’ (Tolkien's word) that not only concludes it but is also woven through its rich fabric, is for those who have died violently and those who inevitably will.

This book starts from the position that the violence of Beowulf is a worthy object of study, and that one way to approach it (there are others, just as valid) is as an element in the complex of social practices depicted in the poem. Violence as social practice has been treated in wider-ranging literary studies, especially those by John M. Hill (to which I owe a particular debt).